Generally, a user equipment operates through firmware. As is well known, firmware refers to programming instructions used to control the hardware of a mobile device in operation. Such firmware may often improve and evolve into new versions to provide better performance and debugging. When a new version of specific firmware is developed, users can upgrade the firmware in their user equipments by using various wired or wireless techniques. A recent and remarkable upgrade technique is a Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) service.
FOTA provides an upgrade of firmware by offering an update package via a wireless network. In a FOTA service, an update package, also referred to as a delta file, is created by the extraction of differences between an old version and a new version of firmware. Typically, a device management server sends a firmware download resource identifier to a user equipment for downloading an update package. For example, the user equipment may obtain the firmware download resource identifier from the device management server using a push initiation or polling technique. Using the firmware download resource identifier, the user equipment fetches the update package from a FOTA server and upgrades the firmware by replacing modified parts of existing firmware with the update package.
Some of the user equipments in the wireless network may be switched off or operating in emergency mode when the device management server has initiated a FOTA service to all the user equipments. Consequently, such user equipments may miss critical FOTA updates. Also, the device management server providing FOTA service to large number of user equipments in the wireless network may lead to overloading of the core network with signaling and data transfers.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.